Ch 14. Education, Health and Medicine

Question 1

Education

Answer 1

the social institution through which society provides its members with important knowledge, including basic facts, job skills, and cultural norms and values.

Question 2

Schooling

Answer 2

formal instruction under the direction of specially trained teachers

Question 3

Education + Economic Development?

Answer 3

There are often overlaps between schooling in a society and the level of economic development society.

Question 4

Structural-Functional Theory: The Functions of Schooling

Answer 4

1. Socialization. Basic skills, values, and norms
2. Cultural Innovation. Through research
3. Social Integration of diverse groups
4. Social Placement: the enhancement of meritocracy
5. Latent Functions: provides child care; reduces competition for jobs; and identifies partners

Question 5

Symbolic Interaction Theory on Education

Answer 5

People create the reality they experience in their day-to-day interactions. This approach explains how stereotypes can shape what goes on in the classroom

Question 6

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 6

Student’s behaviour and achievement is impacted by their teacher’s expectation of them. (symbolic interaction theory)

Question 7

Social-Conflict Theory: Schooling and Social Inequality

Answer 7

Three ways in which schooling causes and perpetuates social inequality

1. Social Control. Teaches discipline and punctuality
2. Standardized Testing. transforms privilege into personal merit.
   3.Tracking. Assigning students to different types of programs, frequently according to backgrounds.

Question 8

Credential society

Answer 8

evaluates people on the basis of their schooling

This process ends up helping people who are already advantaged and hurting those who are already disadvantaged.

Question 9

Public and private schooling

Answer 9

Private school enrolment numbers have slowly increased, reflecting some Canadian parents’ dissatisfaction with the quality of public-school education for their children

Differences in funding between communities means that children in more affluent areas receive a better education than children in low-income communities

Question 10

Various structural barriers impact school completion including (4)

Answer 10

1. Access to services for mental health and addition problems
2. Family concerns and responsibilities
3. Economic reasons
4. Lack of belonging

Question 11

Mainstreaming

Answer 11

integrating students with disabilities or special needs into the overall educational program.

Question 12

Medicine

Answer 12

the social institution that focuses on fighting disease and improving health

Question 13

Health

Answer 13

A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. (WHO)

Question 14

Social Epidemiology

Answer 14

The study of how health and disease are distributed throughout a society’s population.

Question 15

What does it mean to be healthy?

Answer 15

Can be measured both formally and informally i.e. via medical diagnosis or our own assessments of our well-being

Question 16

Holistic Medicine

Answer 16

an approach to health that emphasizes prevention of illness and takes into account a person’s entire physical and social environment

Question 17

Three foundations of holistic health care

Answer 17

1.Treat patients as people
2.Encourages responsibility, not dependency (active approach to health rather than a a reactive approach to illness)

3.Provide personal treatment (prefers a personal and relaxed environment such as the home)

Question 18

Social Determinants of Health (3)

Answer 18

1. income/wealth distribution, whether or not we are employed and if so, the working conditions we experience
2. health/ social services we receive, and our ability to obtain quality education, food and housing, among other factors
3. Contrary to the assumption that Canadians have personal control over these factors, in most cases these living conditions are imposed upon us

Question 19

Schooling transforms social privilege into…

Answer 19

…personal merit

Question 20

Structural Functional Theory: Role Analysis (Health)

Answer 20

Views medicine as society’s strategy to keep its members healthy. Parsons considered illness dysfunctional because it reduces people’s abilities to perform their roles.

Question 21

Sick role (structural functional)

Answer 21

patterns of behaviour defined as appropriate for people who are ill.

Question 22

three steps in structural functional theory regarding health

Answer 22

• The sick role excuses the ill person from routine social responsibilities
• But people must do whatever is necessary to regain good health by cooperating with doctors and other health practitioners
• Physicians evaluate people’s claims of sickness and help restore sick people to normal routines, using their specialized knowledge

Question 23

Symbolic-Interaction Theory: The Meaning of Health

Answer 23

Health and medical care are socially constructed by people in everyday interaction.

• Our response to illness is not always based on medical facts (ex. aids)
• How people define a medical situation may affect how they feel

Question 24

Social-Conflict and Feminist Theories: Inequality and Health

Answer 24

Capitalists societies allow the richest people to have the best health.
Under a capitalist system, the primary goal of medicine is not health but profit.

Question 25

Consequences of inequality in health

Answer 25

1. Access to care: Rural and Indigenous people are at a disadvantage
   2.Profit motive: Drug companies seek profit
   3.Medicine as politics: In the past, doctors lobbied against some health providers
   4.Feminist theory links health and medicine to gender stratification

Question 26

Bureaucracy and student passivity (5)

Answer 26

rigid uniformity
numerical ratings
rigid expectations
specialization
little individual responsibility